[Kde-pim] Announce: Decibel 0.3.0

[Tobias Hunger]

I am very pleased to announce version 0.3.0 of the Decibel Realtime
Communication Framework.


Decibel
=========

Today's users are relying on communication software on their computer
systems.
They are forced to switch between different applications for the different
protocols and communication methods (text chat, telephony, etc.) they are
using. These applications usually are poorly integrated with each other,
forcing the users to interact with several applications to do simple things
like setting their online status to "away" on all communication channels they
are using.

Decibel is a realtime communications framework, meant to integrate services
like CTI (Computer Telephone Integration), VoIP (Voice over IP) and text
based
chat. This integration makes it possible to uniformly manage user settings
across communication methods. Decibel further enables developers to use these
communications technologies more easily, allowing for improved communications
and - ultimately - collaboration features in their applications.

Decibel consists of the desktop neutral policy daemon and desktop
dependent components. These components interact with the user and its desktop
environment by providing GUIs for common tasks like eg. creating a new
account, storing passwords or contacting a friend. Using the Telepathy
specification (http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/) the Decibel daemon manages
Telepathy compliant connection managers (implementing the various
communication
protocols) and ties them together with Decibel's components to form what a
user perceives as one application.

Development of Decibel is supported by NL.net (http://www.nlnet.com/) and the
code is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1.


Version 0.3.0
===============

This is the third milestone release of Decibel. It is addressed to
application
developers wanting to get a early glance at what Decibel will become. We are
very much interested in your feedback (and - of course - contributions;-)!

This release is a feature complete proof of concept implementation. It can
manage accounts, listen for incoming connections and create connections to
contacts managed in an external PIM system, even though Decibel is not
integrated into any desktop environment at this point. This version uses its
own primitive PIM system to demonstrate how to integrate such a system in
future releases.

Decibel is implemented using the Tapioca
(http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/) Qt bindings to the Telepathy
specification.


Changes since Version 0.3.0
=============================

 * Rework the ComponentManager and PolicyEngine.

   This makes it possible to configure how to react to newly created
   communication channels. Previous versions had a hardcoded behaviour.


Sources:
==========

Get the sources at http://decibel.kde.org/index.php?id=90

The code is further available in the KDE Subversion repository:
svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/work/decibel

Binary packages are not available at this time.


Known Problems
================

None.


To Do
======

 * Improve APIs and functionality
 * Integrate Decibel into desktop environments. This includes replacing
   the simplistic INI-File based contact database with a connection to
   real PIM systems.
 * Provide GUIs for the demos and write "cooler" demos.


Contact
=========

Web:          http://decibel.kde.org/
mailing list: decibel at kde.org
IRC:          #decibel on freenode.net

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions, feedback or want to help
building the Decibel Realtime Communication Framework!

Tobias Hunger
Senior Software Engineer

basysKom GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7 | 64293 Darmstadt | Germany
Tel: +49 6151 396-8769 | Fax: -9736

tobias.hunger at basyskom.de | www.basyskom.de

Handelsregister: Darmstadt HRB 9352
Geschäftsführung: Eva Brucherseifer
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